Saturday March 17 Madison Square Garden- Televised on ESPN 8pm ET

This is a great fight card from top to bottom. I am mostly going to cover the main event which is for the vacant WBC 140 pound title and pits Albany, NY's Amir Imam vs California's Jose Carlos Ramirez. 

Amir Imam (21-0 18 KO's) vs Jose Carlos Ramirez (21-0 16 KO's)

-This is a great matchup between two young, hungry and exciting 140 pound contenders. Both have power but set their power up with two different styles. Ramirez is a skilled but aggressive body puncher who comes forward and throws a very good left hook to the body and the head. Imam is a tall, long boxer with a good jab, very high level skills and crushing power. The odds that I have seen have Ramirez as a 3-1 favorite and those seem a little wide for me. I think this is a very competitive fight and while Imam does have 1 loss I also think he has fought the better competition. 

-Prediction- Before I even get into a prediction I have to say that I am rooting for Imam. He is from Albany and I have watched him all through the amateurs, he has sparred in my gym and is a very nice kid. Having said that though I will try to predict this fight using my brain and not my heart. I definitely think that Imam has a good chance, with his skills and his power he is capable of beating anyone in the world on any given day. There are several reasons though I believe this may be a tough fight for him. First, his only loss was to a tough come forward aggressive fighter named Adrian Granados who gradually broke him down and stopped him after Imam started fast and dropped him early. Ramirez is a come forward break you down type of fighter in the Granados mold but is better. Second, since that loss Imam has only fought 3 times, once in 2016 and twice in 2017 and all three wins have been against very average competition. On the other side Ramirez is coming off a career best win, a stoppage victory against undefeated Mike Reed. For those reasons, as much as it hurts me to do it, I am picking Ramirez by late TKO. 

-Also on the card is undefeated Irish Olympian Michael Conlan and undefeated Puerto Rican Felix Verdejo. They will be getting a lot of hype but in my eyes the two undercard guys to watch are Puerto Rico's Christopher Diaz,who fights at 130  and the Ukraine's Oleksander Gvozdyk who fights at 175. These are both future world champs in my opinion and I expect them to steal the show on the undercard.